The Book

Natural Disasters as a Catalyst for Social CapitAL: A Study of the 500 Year Flood in Cedar Rapids, Iowa

500 Year Flood examines the vastly under-explored impact of natural disasters on community life and our collective sense of togetherness (what sociologists call "social capital"), using the case study of the unprecedented 500 Year Flood of June 2008 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

This book, in highlighting the enormous impact of one disaster in a mid-sized Midwestern city, offers a framework for a new theory for why social capital shifts in societies from one generation to another: the transformative impact of shared traumas.